Understand
We present the simplest nuclear energy density functional (NEDF) to date, determined by only 4 significant phenomenological parameters, yet capable of fitting measured nuclear masses with better accuracy than the Bethe-Weizs\"acker mass formula, while also describing density structures (charge radii, neutron skins etc.) and time-dependent phenomena (induced fission, giant resonances, low energy nuclear collisions, etc.).
- The 4 significant parameters are necessary to describe bulk nuclear properties (binding energies and charge radii); an additional 2 to 3 parameters have little influence on the bulk nuclear properties, but allow independent control of the density dependence of the symmetry energy and isovector excitations, in particular the Thomas-Reiche-Kuhn sum rule.
- This Hohenberg-Kohn-style of density functional theory successfully realizes Weizs\"acker's ideas and provides a computationally tractable model for a variety of static nuclear properties and dynamics, from finite nuclei to neutron stars, where it will also provide a new insight into the physics of the r-process, nucleosynthesis, and neutron star crust structure.
- This new NEDF clearly separates the bulk geometric properties - volume, surface, symmetry, and Coulomb energies which amount to 8MeV per nucleon or up to 2000MeV per nucleus for heavy nuclei - from finer details related to shell effects, pairing, isospin breaking, etc.